


Across the Sand (To Find this Peace)

by whislcey (estranqer)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Infidelity, M/M, Mental Anguish, Misunderstandings, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Substitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estranqer/pseuds/whislcey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unknown to the why's or the how's, Prime!Jim has survived and is found in the alternate time line. In his disbelief, he readily thinks himself in a heaven of unintended creation. No one can recognize him though. No one can name him. When he finds this Spock and this odd version of Jim avidly reject their affections for each other, he's believes it is his penance and accepts the debilitating hell he really thinks this is. </p><p>Prime!Spock felt the bond flare to life for the first time in decades. It's only about working a way to physically get to him, but when the bond quavers like a plucked guitar string, it's a race to get to him in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the Sand (To Find this Peace)

**Author's Note:**

> First work posted here! I'm more nervous than excited. First Star Trek publish too! Geez. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Title taken from Jackson Browne's Our Lady of the Well. It'll be a recurring 'theme' through the work. 
> 
> Onward! *Unbeta'd.

The darkness was a violence that raged just along his very being, like a static charge burning just over his skin but only raising the hairs of his arms, like the building pressure of being submerged over several thousand feet of water but never having your lungs collapse. He knew. He didn’t know how, or why, but he knew he could feel the pressure mounting, the center of a collapsing star, and he knew he’d been burning for a long time -- too long -- and he was about to go supernova. He’d done what he could, and he wasn’t going down without a fight.

He pitied those who thought light was chaos; he pitied himself. He knew light. Light was order and class and controlled motion. Light was always moving. Even when it could not reach, it would keep moving until it was stretched so thin and dissipated into subspace. That was him. It was a wry thought, but that was him, suddenly submerged in the heat and the _darkness_ and it _burned_ in its chaos, and he felt it -- he _was_ it -- as it suddenly flared and darkness condensed and his last thought was how he really hoped he was more beautiful than a dying star.

  
  
When he awoke, it was not all at once. He felt nothing, but his relief was fleeting as he came to feel _everything_. He was alive, not burning, only itching as he felt cloth chafe every available part of him, twitching under the bright lights that suddenly tickled his eyes as he pried them open, tears clinging to his lashes and falling free as his body sung its relief at _new_ , and _alive_ , and --

A caterwauling whine startled his mind into awareness, but his body was pliant and warm under a cocoon of cotton and as he felt the brush of a body beside him, his head and his eyes lagged considerably as he tried to follow. By the time he could look up against the glaring lights, trying to get his groggy brain in control of his faculties, the chime had cut-off and the warmth of the body suddenly became dense shadow as it hovered over him.

“It’s alright,” was murmured to him, but with that drawl of their tongue, it was as if lashings of honey were being dragged along him from head to toe, filling him with a warmth he’d missed in --

There were tender fingertips pressing into his cheekbones, tugging the skin under his eyes as they swiped away the stray tears he was not conscious of. “It’s alright, you’re body’s just going through the last leg of its shock. You gotta get your heart rate down, okay?”

He felt that gruff timbre strike deep within him a warmth so strong, he was helpless against the bubbling _mirth_ that shook his frame, twisting his lips as he lazily squinting up at his wavy shadow, his body wracked in breathless chortles.

_“Bones…”_

He felt like he was wading through some alien marsh as he struggled to raise his arm, taking the hand that cradled his face, just in time for his vision to clear to finally see the rugged features of his beloved medicine man. He kept his eyes open, wanting to catalogue every ethereal feature he could manage to hold on to. He gripped his arm fiercer, staring up at honey’d eyes and a thick thatchet of hair, and eyebrows beautifully sculpted and met in the middle. This was a Leonard McCoy, but how many years younger is he? He was suddenly buoyed, a belated shock that he was _here_ , with --

“Bones,” he rasped dryly, forcing through a scoffing laugh as the doctor pulled away from him to fetch him water. “My oldest friend. Of course, it would be you…”

The lip of a rim pressed to his mouth and he gratefully took a sip, feeling maybe a little bit of hysteria at how convincingly refreshing this water felt on his parched throat. He gently pried the cup from the doctors hands -- far from rawboned, he noted -- and cradled it in his own wizened hands, taking fortifying gulp after gulp. A soothing hand on his shoulder slowed him.

“Easy,” the honey’d effect did not waver, feeling warmed to the very tips of his toes and out.

He could only offer up another laugh, taking deft hold of one of his doctor’s hands, rubbing it between his, smiling down at their embrace. “Together even in… Say, what do i call this place?”

His new and sudden reality felt so beautiful and real, he wondered if it was only product of his subconscious. The walls were pristine and the whole room glowed from within, lights shining from any and all direction though he could not pinpoint their source at all. Everything was stark white, streamlined silver, and the lightest of blue. There was the softest of hums that rumbled beneath him; it was nearly undetectable but he had a lifetime of being personally acquainted with any and all starships to recognize the calming thrum of a warp engine. _Of cour_ \--

“The _Enterprise_ ,” gruffed his companion. “You’re aboard the USS Enterprise.”

Carefully looking up at his companion, quite belatedly taking in the doctors uniform: a prim blue overshirt in a fine fabric, insignia pin carefully positioned over his heart.

“Is this what she looks like, then?” he let his surprise bloom, along with the most massive wave of warmth yet, knowing even in death he could not -- would not -- be parted from his silver lady. “Is this what happened for refit after Picquard?”

“What are you on about, old man?” there was a confused scowl tugging heavily at the corners of his friend’s mouth, and he decided he didn’t quite like that at all.

“Hey, now,” he huffed indignantly, looking down at his own hands, flexing his old joints and hearing them creak. “You’re still older than me, Bones. Remember? You called me kid forever and an age. I’m sure there’s some reason i’ve been left like this.”

He always wondered if he’d see himself to old age. To retirement. To sitting in the admiralty until his butt wore down to nothing. To retiring the ‘fleet, and only show up at new refits and commendations. To leaving San Francisco and grounding himself elsewhere. He guessed not, and it had deeply upset his bond--

“Say! Is Spock going to welcome me at the gates, or what?” He snorted quietly, hands gesturing at the biobed he sat atop. “Have i passed some grand test? What awaits me beyond the doors, Doc?”

Said doctor only looked upon him in more confusion, gaze hard and calculating. He could catch the twitching hand as if he was curbing the urge to snatch up a hypo and stick him with it. The scowl suddenly disappeared and he watched as his figure in blue reached for the comm unit, slapped it and spit out, without premise, “Commander, you’re needed in medbay.”

There was a second that felt like a beautiful eternity. And he could not describe it otherwise. He laid back in the semi-comfortable bed, and counted the non-existent seconds, because he was finally in a place that nothing mattered but his happiness and his friendship and all the love he’d horded over the years. This was it for him. So. When ten non-seconds later, a figure crossed through the swishing doors, and said --

“Doctor, you requested my presence,”

\-- he had nothing to hide, or lose, or mourn, when he bolted half-upright and called out with the eagerness of a Caitian kitling after it’s first kill --

“K’diwa!”

Having those dark eyes swivel to meet his, a delicate eyebrow inching up his forehead, his imposing posture never wavering… It made him giddy with happiness, and he could not stop the small giggle that escaped his mouth (though he did ignore the incredulous scowl his doctor sent him)

“How fares our patient, Doctor?” Delivered completely free of inflection, it still managed to sound entirely doubtful and suspicious of whatever the doctor’s reply would be.

He could only answer with another giggle. “Ashaya, you never told me you were so smolderingly sexy when you were this young?”

There was a half-non-second pause of disturbed thought.

“Pardon?”

“No, i really wonder what it is! We all met so much later in life, and now i wonder why…”

“I believe you have been led to a misunderstanding, sir --”

“ _Sir_?” He could only blink in surprise, “Sir? Since when do you call me ‘Sir’? It’s been years, ashayam.”

“Sir, I don’t believe we've ever been acquainted.”

He could only blink. But every time, Spock was still standing beside the doors to medbay, hands clasped behind his back, and pinning him with an unrecognizing glare. He felt something drop within him, suddenly filling him with ice, everything in his being filled with a crippling cold that could not be unfelt, could not be numbed. _Was he wrong? Was this, instead, his hell?_

He turned wide unseeing eyes up at his physician, pleading without words as he felt a hand lain on his shoulder and a murmur that was meant to be soothing, but not at all. Not at all.

“What’s your name, sir?”

 _No_ , he wanted to scream. _Not you too, my oldest friend._ “It’s me, Bones. Jim. It’s Jimmy, Bones. Jim _Kirk_. The thorn in your side since you took your commision. Come on. _Come on_ …”

He could feel the panic set in, rooted deep, and the last thing he saw was the troubled glance shared over his bed, before he distantly felt the hiss of a hypo, and then…

Then the darkness took over once more. He would wake up in hell, he knew.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading this little thing. I normally write a lot, and i'll probably edit this chapter to be longer, because my chapters aren't this short.
> 
> I'd really enjoy some sort of feedback, any! I'll admit i'm not the greatest about updating, but this is something i wanna take seriously. 
> 
> If anyone wants to beta, or be a soundboard, or simply a cheerleader, feel freeee to tell me, please. i love you guys.


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